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Could the juxtaposition of immortality and the transience of human life run through a graveyard? I
was tempted to embrace such a philosophical riddle when I saw the wave equation, considered to be
one of the most famous equations in modern scientific history, displayed at the grave of physicist
Erwin Schrdinger in Tirol, Austria.
Do mathematical equations, as Platonism suggests, represent timeless truths about reality? The
reverberations of this age-old debate are still heard in contemporary mathematical and philosophical
circles. Whatever be the inference of such deliberations, no one can deny the immortal nature of an
of an equation if they ever had caught a glimpse of Schrdinger's gravesite.
We don't need any introduction to recognize the famous physics equations such as F=ma or
E=mc^2. However, the Schrdinger wave equation, though more central to the modern physics than
these equations, is less popular and definitely more abstract.
Look at Newton's Second Law of motion represented by the equation F=ma, where F is force, m is
mass and a is acceleration. In classical physics, this simple and powerful equation describes
everything that one needs to know about a physical system in terms of its motion.
However, physicists realized the limitations of classical physics when they learned about the
dynamics of the microscopic world in early 20th century. The science of the microscopic world -quantum mechanics -- demanded a different approach in reckoning the rules that govern the
evolution of the fundamental particles such as electrons over time.
To make matters worse, experiments in the late 1920s confirmed the wave-like nature of these
particles. At this point, we could suspend our instinct to know more about the wave like nature of
particles for the sake of completing the discussion on Schrdinger equation.
The following equation, discovered in 1926 by Schrdinger, represents evolution of quantum
mechanical systems such as electrons for which he shared the Nobel Prize in 1933 with physicist
Paul Dirac.
transitory human life. No wonder many physicists consider this equation as the Mona Lisa of
physics, a portrait that displays a mysterious state-the superposition of joy and grief.
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